While doing my Science Fair, I saved everything I wrote prior to printing out. So, here it is!

POKÉMON – TO BREED OR TO CATCH?

Introduction:
Pokémon is a video game where you catch monsters and make other monsters faint. You do that by raising them. The circumstances in which you got the Pokémon are essential to how powerful and efficient you can battle other Pokémon, however. There are two ways to get a Pokémon – to take your character into an area where wild Pokémon appear and catch them with a ball or have two Pokémon breed in a special building. This Science Fair Project is for investigating these two ways of getting a Pokémon and speculate over which of them is the ideal one from how much time it takes, how easy it is, how much money it can save and foremost, how powerful a Pokémon can get. For those that are wondering, it’s about Third Generation Pokémon games. Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Fire Red and Leaf Green Versions, that is.

Hypothesis:
Pokémon hatched from eggs has a lot of base benefits compared to Wild Pokémon. It can get Technical Machines (a sort of item that can be used once to make Pokémon learn a move) and Egg Moves (a sort of moves certain Pokémon can only get from hatching) straight from birth if the Father has the right moves. (A slight clarification: The Female Pokémon is the factor that decides what Pokémon the hatchling is going to be and the Male Pokémon decides what moves the hatchling knows from birth.) Hatched Pokémon are always at the level 5 at birth, however, while wild Pokémon are from any level, from maybe level 2 to level 60ish, depending on where you find it. This means there might be some serious grinding before reaching level 100, the highest level possible. If a guess would be made, Pokémon breeding seems to be a good bet.

Materials:
This Science Fair Project doesn’t need much, but here’s a few.
• A Gameboy Advance
• A Fire Red Version game
• A computer

Procedure:
Let’s view it from how much time it takes, how easy it is, how much money it can save and how powerful a Pokémon can get.

Time it takes:
A key strategy in getting the perfect Pokémon is getting as many of them as possible. Not all Pokémon are alike. Their stats (Attack, Defence, Speed, Special Attack and Special Defence) vary because of IV (Individual value). It’s based on a complicated 31 number system that is quite complicated to understand, so IV won’t be elaborated on. Another thing that sets Pokémon apart from each other in states are their nature, an ability that gives an additional +10% increase in a particular stat, but a -10% in another. It’s thus imperative to have a Pokémon with both the right nature and right IV. As was stated before, to do that it takes many Pokémon to pick the optimal one. Let’s make an example. If one person tries to get as many Pikachus as possible by catching them and another by hatching them for 24 hours straight, who would get the most? Pokémon are hatched by walking around. Five eggs can be held at once. If a bike is used 12 steps per second will be made under perfect condition. It takes 2560 steps to hatch a Pikachu. The number of steps per day that can be optimally made is 60 * 60 * 24 * 12 = 1036800. The number of Pikachu eggs that can optimally hatch per day is 1036800 / 2560 = 405.
It takes about one minute to catch a Pokémon. So the number of wild Pokémon caught is 60 * 24 = 1440 for person number 1. This is a very incomplete calculation because stuff like having to heal Pokémon, having to buy more balls, the time taken to find the Pokémon in question and the success rate at which Pokémon can be caught and stuff like that is not taken into account. Still, that’s a lot of Pokémon that can be caught. Ultimately, it depends on the skill and experience of both people in the example.

Money it costs:
The example from “Time it takes” can be used once again. Depending on how hard it is to catch a wild Pokémon, an ordinary Poké Ball, a Great Ball or an Ultra Ball is used. Poké Balls cost 200 money, Great Ball 600 and Ultra Ball 1200. Let’s say the person who tries to catch wild Pikachus uses ordinary Poké Balls. If he really catches 1440 Pokémon, it’ll cost him 288000 money. That’s quite expensive. The person who breeds and hatches Pokémon only has to pay a base cost of 100 for each Pokémon, with a 200 total, as well as 100 for every level a Pokémon gets (having them in a special building also makes them gain levels). So, supposing the breeder’s Pokémon doesn’t gain any levels, that’s 200 money that the person has to pay. That’s also the price of an ordinary Poké Ball. The breeder only has to pay once for what the catcher has to pay for every time the catcher catches a Pokémon. On an economic level, it could be said that breeding Pokémon is superior to catching them.

The Difficulty:
Pokémon can’t breed with just about any Pokémon. Every Pokémon has a certain “Egg Group” that it can breed within. It can have more than one egg group. Some Pokémon are in the “Eggless” group and can’t breed with any Pokémon, except the elusive Pokémon Ditto. So, understandably it is quite difficult to breed Pokémon if the special “Egg Moves”, which are described in the Hypothesis, are wanted. Sometimes, it needs chain breeding. Chain breeding is a very intricate system of breeding certain moves to certain Pokémon, carrying them over the Egg Groups to the specific Pokémon. Smeargle, the special Pokémon that is able to learn every move possible, can however make learning Pokémon Egg Moves easier and can carry out several chain breeding missions at once. The setback is that it can only breed with Pokémon of the “Ground” Egg Group since that’s were it belongs. In short, Pokémon breeding can be downright difficult. It’s also hard to raise them since they start at such a low level (they can know very advanced moves at birth, however, which makes raising easier). Catchers have much easier going when it comes to catching Pokémon. Catching some Pokémon could be hard, but overall it is quite easier to catch a certain Pokémon than raising it.

The Powerfulness:
As has been stated in “Time it takes”, the Powerfulness is decided by what Individual Value and what Nature it has. One other key component of an efficient Pokémon killing machine, however, is the moves. A wild Pokémon doesn’t have access to the various Egg Moves and has to use Technical Machines to learn certain powerful moves. Using breeding, both egg moves and Technical Machines can be learnt to a Pokémon. If TM26 Earthquake (which is a very great move) has been used, only Pokémon who learn it naturally can use Earthquake. However, breeded Pokémon can learn it from birth if the Pokémon can learn that move and the father has learned it. Wild Pokémon doesn’t have any special moves that only they can learn. If the focus is on getting the most out of a Pokémon, there might be some cases where it’s necessary to breed Pokémon to get certain moves, simply.

Conclusion:
Have you read everything in the procedure? If not, do so.
From a timesaving point of view, the experiment was inconclusive. It could depend on personal taste. From an economic point of view, it has been concluded that breeding Pokémon can save tremendous amounts of money compared to catching them. Considering how difficult it is to catch or breed Pokémon, catching them is quite easier than breeding them. Finally, there is also the Powerfulness to consider. The conclusion was that wild and breeded Pokémon could be equally powerful in some situations, but Pokémon hatched from eggs could learn elusive Egg Moves, which arguably makes them more powerful. In summary, weigh these advantages and disadvantages for and against if you would ever consider raising some Pokémon. It all depends on personal taste.

Source:
The Pokédex on Serebii.net.
http://www.serebii.net/

Aramazd

Apr 19, 2008, 10:58 AM

Your conclusion is flawed; the optimal way to get good pokemon is to cheat.

zxcvbnm

Apr 19, 2008, 12:20 PM

Is this really worth of a thread in CFC Science/Technology forums? Would be better in PFC forums (pokemon fanatics center...)

AL_DA_GREAT

Apr 20, 2008, 03:54 PM

I need to do a science fair project where I just need to game.

Knight-Dragon

Apr 20, 2008, 10:59 PM

Is this really worth of a thread in CFC Science/Technology forums? Would be better in PFC forums (pokemon fanatics center...)I'll leave it alone for now.

At least, it's original... :lol:

Bratmon

May 11, 2009, 06:37 PM

I need to do a science fair project where I just need to game.

Dang! I can't believe I didn't think of that. I did a science fair last year. :goodjob: for thinking of that.